Fresh Manna
by Pastor Tim Burt
One night I awoke up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. When I got back into bed, I felt impressed to pray. What does that mean, I felt impressed to pray? I was suddenly more awake than I should have been from just making a quick bathroom trip, and felt this desire to pray. And when I say pray, I don’t mean praying with my understanding, I felt impressed to pray in tongues. I’ll come back to this but let me back up for a minute.
On Mondays, my day is full of staff meetings. I have an incredible group of people on my staff and they all work extremely hard. By the grace of God, together, we accomplish an amazing amount of work that we pray is always a great blessing to our congregation. With a congregation of over 10,000 people, there is always a great deal of activity on many levels happening in the church. Yesterday, there were a few extra unplanned things that were put on my plate that I needed to work into my week. They were concerning situations of precious people I know and love, that needed prayer and attention.
When I woke up in the middle of the night, I felt impressed to pray. When you pray with your understanding, there is only so much you can pray. But when you pray in the spirit—in tongues, you can pray forever! I prayed for about 90 minutes and in that time, the Lord began to give me different perspectives on how to deal with and handle things would be coming up in my week. It was truly a grace because I suddenly and confidently knew how to handle some situations in a better way. This time of praying in tongues and giving that place to the Lord, resulted in Him showing me things I needed to understand so that I would have the right perspective and His wisdom. This is one of the reasons why the gift of tongues is one of the most precious things in my life. Because of it, I make fewer mistakes and experience greater grace and success in what I put my hand to.
We all face those times in life where we don’t know what to do. Where do you get answers for things that are beyond your knowledge base? Where do you get wisdom and insight you can trust for the situations you face? We want to hear from God and receive answers from Him, but how do we?
Of course the Lord speaks to us through His Word—through scriptures from the Bible. The Lord might bring a verse to your heart. He might cause a verse to stand out or even jump of the page where it seems to be speaking to you. The Lord takes that verse and begins to speak to your heart about it in a way that makes sense to and is relevant to your life and life situations. That is one ways the Lord speaks to you. Another way might be in church. The Pastor might be preaching a sermon and as he does, the verses and subject he is speaking about seem to be just for you. (I have had countless times of someone saying to me, Did someone tell you about my situation?)
Another way the Lord speaks to us is in our heart when we spend time praying in tongues. Sometimes when you are praying in tongues, the Lord begins to show you answers to things you have been thinking and praying about. For that reason, I often carry a journal with me so I can write down what I feel the Lord is speaking to me. Romans 8:26 says, it like this, “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.” When you pray with your understanding, you can only pray for so long and then you’ve said what you know to pray. When you pray in tongues, you give place to the Holy Spirit praying through you—to “help us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us…” Not always but many times when are praying in tongues, the Lord will show you things that will help you. He shows you them by His Spirit. This is supernatural help!
1 Corinthians 2:9-13 (NLT) puts it like this, “That is what the Scriptures mean when they say, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him.” But it was to us that God revealed these things by his Spirit. For his Spirit searches out everything and shows us God’s deep secrets. No one can know a person’s thoughts except that person’s own spirit, and no one can know God’s thoughts except God’s own Spirit. And we have received God’s Spirit (not the world’s spirit), so we can know the wonderful things God has freely given us. When we tell you these things, we do not use words that come from human wisdom. Instead, we speak words given to us by the Spirit, using the Spirit’s words to explain spiritual truths.”
The gifts of the Spirit listed in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 are gifts given by God to us experience and receive His supernatural help in this life. We won’t need that help in Heaven. We need all the help we can get from Him now as we navigate this sin-defiled earth. We need His help and strength and wisdom to restrain our self from wrong and to have the wisdom and fortitude to keep our life focused on Him and do what is right. This is why God gave us gifts. To help us through life.
Do you have a car? Does it help you navigate life? Do you have a cell phone or other technologies that help you navigate life? God gives us spiritual and supernatural help that is more important than any other kind of help we could receive. Praying in tongues helped me so much last night. During that time, the Lord gave me the perspective and wisdom to keep from making mistakes and manage what is before me with His love and grace! I praise God for that!
1 Cor. 14:14-15 (NLT) “For if I pray in tongues, my spirit is praying, but I don’t understand what I am saying. Well then, what shall I do? I will do both. I will pray in the spirit, and I will pray in words I understand…”
If you would like a free book on the subject of tongues, write to info@mac-hammond.org request a free copy of Water, Wind, and Fire, by Mac Hammond and include your name and mailing address to send it to. They will be glad to bless you with a copy.
In His Love,
Pastor Tim Burt
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Published by Pastor Tim Burt
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Is there a verse in the Bible that encourages or instructs us to pray in tongues? I agree that we should pray in the Spirit, which doesn’t mean tongues, per the original language, but we should also walk in the Spirit, and abide in the Spirit at all times. Thanks and blessings
1 Corinthians 14:5 (KJV) “I would that ye all spake with tongues…” And in my view and in light of the scriptures, it is my view that when the Bible it talking about praying in the spirit, it is talking about praying in tongues.
1 Corinthians 14:14 (KJV) “For if I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit prayeth, but my understanding is unfruitful.”
1 Corinthians 14:15 (KJV) “What is it then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also: I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also.”
Much love to you brother and thanks for your response pastor Tim. In verse 5 we see Paul use the word spake. This is referring to prayer but to actually speaking forth or proclaiming in the tongue like we seen at Pentecost. We disagree about the inference of tongues being the same as praying in the Spirit though. My view is praying in the Spirit is just that, praying in the Spirit instead of praying in the flesh.
My next question would be about verse 14. This is the only passage where Paul actually addresses the issue of praying in tongues. My question is, when is it ever OK for a believer to be unfruitful? Verse 14 states directly that is he is praying in his “spirit” which isn’t “The Spirit” that his mind is unfruitful. So for me, he answers the question in verse 15. He says there that he will pray with my spirit BUT he will also pray with understanding. I believe Jesus teaches us how to pray in Matthew 6:9-15 and the structure that we are to use. Thanks for your time in this matter and may the Lord continue to bless you.
You’ve made up your mind so you’ll have what you think you know and believe for. And I’ll likewise get to live with the wonderful gift from God I know and love and appreciate so very much!
I am always open for correction brother. Thanks for your time and God bless you. Be blessed.